Clear Winners And Losers

This generation of children in school has learned an incredibly harmful lesson, even when one delivers a mediocre or sub-par performance, a reward of a participation trophy, gold star, or cupcake is awarded. There is no incentive to improve when average behaviors are reinforced with prizes or praise. If this practice continues we will be stuck with a generation of underachievers who live with their parents, work at McDonald’s, and have absolutely no semblance of motivation or work ethic.
Participation trophies and ribbons must be eliminated. Clear winners and losers must be established. Knowing when you need to work hard and improve is a vital skill. In the professional world when you perform your duties poorly, your superiors will not give you a gold star and a pat on the back. They will either tell you to improve or fire you. Awards for just showing up take away …show more content…
Learning that you do not always win is a valuable lesson to learn. And if you want the award you have to work harder next time. Oftentimes everybody on a given team receives a trophy for participating. This contributes to the feeling of equal work and effort and skill. However, this is a dishonest practice because a select few can put in a tremendous amount of effort, but when everybody receives a trophy, that effort is valued equally as the members who put in the minimum amount of effort.
Hampshire College is among one of the alternative schools that has abolished the grading system. Which gives no incentive at all to further your career goals and better yourself? Do you know any notable alumni from Hampshire College? How about from Harvard or Yale? I would venture to say that many more nobel prize winners, authors, scientists, inventors, and scholars have graduated from schools that pushed them, rather than from schools that gave all the kids in class a gold star. This system of giving everybody a gold star does not prepare people for real world